Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1884 — Introducing the Chaplain. [ARTICLE]

Introducing the Chaplain.

"Speaking of troopers swearing,” pnt in an officer of Van Cl eve’s old division of the Army of the Cumberland, “old Gen. Fred Knefler, of the Seventyninth Indiana, illustrated the idea to a nicety. He always made a full hand without raising the perspiration. He swore easily, earnestly, and eloquently, in season and out of season. When Gov. Morton sent a chaplain to Knefler’s regiment the boys looked for rare fun. Knefler received the chaplain very cordially, and asked him to mark out his programme, and he would see that it was carried out. “The next morning (Sunday) he ordered his regiment to muster for religious services. He formed the companies in column at half distance, doubled on center, in front of a stand which he had erected the day before, and then he proceeded in his own way to introduce the chaplain. He told the men that he proposed to stand by the chaplain ; the chaplain was going to preach whenever he felt so inclined, and every blanked man in the regiment had to listen. He wanted his men to show proper respect to the chaplain and to religion, and if they didn’t, so help him blazes, if he didn’t send every blanked one of them to the guard-house. “The General warmed up to his work and in the course of his introductory remarks swore probably twenty times. The whole thing was so funny that the regiment, thinking it over, burst into a roar in the midst of the prayer. The General put the officers under arrest, but made the men stand through the service. In the end the chaplain did great good. Knefler quit swearing and the men kept a good line of conduct.—Chicago Inter Ocean.